Chargers Head Coach Mike McCoy, his voice beginning to weaken, his face still red, shouted in the midst of a group of players, staff and coaches in the locker room immediately after Sunday’s victory over the Dallas Cowboys.

McCoy praised the players for their hard work during the week and for the various ways they capitalized during the game.

And then he said this:

“That’s a hell of a job coaching!”

He wasn’t speaking about himself. He, in fact, pointed to his assembled assistants.

McCoy was right, as attested to by the chorus of affirmations and applause from the assembled players that followed.

Honestly, this staff has coached its collective backside off to even have the Chargers at 2-2.

When we assess football coaches, we primarily talk about how they motivate and their installation and execution of a game plan. And through four games, it seems the Chargers’ new coaching staff is as good any other, maybe even better than most, at those things.

Moreover, though, what we’ve seen has been a group doing extraordinary things under extraordinary circumstances with mostly ordinary resources.

Practice Report - Freeney Edition

Sports columnist Kevin Acee and Michael Gehlken give us the latest Chargers practice report and discuss Dwight Freeney, who will be out for the remainder of the season.

Sports columnist Kevin Acee and Michael Gehlken give us the latest Chargers practice report and discuss Dwight Freeney, who will be out for the remainder of the season.

I believe quarterback Philip Rivers can lift this team to greater heights than it has a right to expect. However, if the Chargers are to win more than (or even as much as) they lose, it will also have much to do with what this staff does every day to overcome mounting injuries on a team that began the season with an already shallow talent pool.

This staff’s disaster preparedness, essentially, has set it apart.

Every coaching staff talks about “next man up.” That doesn’t mean they actually are properly equipping the next man.

It was noted in training camp and the preseason how this staff gave an inordinate amount of practice and playing time to second- and third-string players with the idea those players would see extensive time at some point.

But it goes beyond that. It’s about a way of coaching.

“We work so hard in practice on the little things,” said receiver Eddie Royal, a member of a unit that is without its top two receivers.

Primarily, when speaking of disaster preparedness, we would have to talk about the offensive line, which has had eight starters and nine different players in all work at the five positions. Sunday, three of the players who had started the first three games were out with injury.

In recent years, that has meant almost assured failure. Yet Philip Rivers is having the best season of his career so far and on Sunday has arguably his finest game.

Without even being asked, players all over the locker room voice the praises of line coach Joe D’Alessandris.

“Joe D does a really nice job of making it very detailed, very specific,” said center Nick Hardwick, the only Chargers offensive lineman to have played every game since the start of the 2011 season. “You’re only allowed to do it his way … So when things like this happen, where guys are falling left and right, the next guy can come in and perform in the system. He just has to perform within the system. When things like this happen, you can more easily trust the guy next to you.”

D’Alessandris credits “good players” but also a philosophy.

“That’s how I approach coaching -- how can I help anyone get better,” he said. “There are tools, there are skills. Each (player) has ability. How much does he want to maximize it?”

D’Alessandris also preaches a refrain that has become familiar at Chargers Park.